23176" (Chamberlain) Tropical Storm Jeanne (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 19 (AP) -- Tropical Storm Jeanne killed at least 29
people in Haiti after battering the neighboring Dominican Republic with its
lashing winds and deadly storm surge before it pushed off into the open sea
on Sunday, officials said.
   The erratic storm lashed Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Friday and
Saturday, drenching northern Hispaniola and triggering flash floods.
   The storm has been blamed for 38 deaths. Seven died in neighboring
Dominican Republic and two died in Puerto Rico.
   Twenty deaths were blamed on the storm in the northern Haitian city of
Gonaives, said Dieufort Deslorges, a spokesman for the Haitian Ministry of
Interior. He didn't say how the deaths occurred.
   Much of Gonaives was still under 6 feet of water Sunday, and aid workers
were having trouble evacuating all the people in need, Deslorges said.
   U.N. peacekeeping troops were evacuating the injured to a former
university, said Mamie Ward, a U.N. mission spokeswoman.
   "Now the primary concern is getting people to a safe place," she said.
   Eight deaths in the northwest, where houses were swept away, were blamed
on the storm, Deslorges said. One person died in the south because of
flooding, he said.
   Several people were reported missing and feared dead. Unlike the
Dominican Republic, much of Haiti is deforested and unable to hold back
flood waters.
   Jeanne lost strength even as it drove thousands of Dominicans from their
homes late Friday. But a few hours after being downgraded to a tropical
depression, it strengthened again on Saturday into a tropical storm with
lashing winds.
   The storm stalled over the Dominican after coming ashore Thursday as a
hurricane, with winds near 80 mph. It had raged through Puerto Rico on
Wednesday, dumping up to two feet of rain, flooding hundreds of homes and
downing power lines.
   Jeanne headed into open seas Sunday and didn't appear likely to hit the
storm-battered southeast United States. It was expected to turn south over
the next two days and head back out into the Atlantic, away from U.S.
states that have been battered by three major storms already this season.
   "It happens every couple of seasons," meteorologist Eric Blake of the
U.S. National Hurricane Center said of the storm's erratic path.
   At 11 a.m. EDT, Jeanne was 130 miles east-southeast of the Bahamian
island of San Salvador, moving northward near 5 mph. Storm-force winds near
45 mph stretched up to 85 miles to the east of its center -- toward open
sea.
   The Bahamian government discontinued all storm warnings.
   Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl posed no immediate threat to land, forecasters
said. Its sustained winds strengthened to near 125 mph and were expected to
get stronger Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
   President Bush declared the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a disaster
zone on Friday, two days after Jeanne tore through the island.
   Some 200,000 of the island's 4 million residents were without running
water for a fifth day on Sunday, and nearly 500,000 were without
electricity.
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   On the Net:
   http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
   http://www.wunderground.com/tropical